College Seniors: Do You Really Know How to Look For a Job?

For many students, college is an exciting time to find out more about yourself in new surroundings. For once, you finally have full control of what you want to do with your future.

By senior year, a lot of students think they've got it all figured out—particularly when it comes to looking for a job. However, many students don't actually know how to do that—such as what tactics they need to use while job hunting and what's going to actually take them from point A to point B.

So, for students who have graduation on the horizon, here are some rules to follow when conducting your very first job search:

Rule #1: Create a job search plan. It may sound simple, but it's important to figure out what you want to do before you look for a job. This may mean analyzing yourself, as well as where you want to be, in detail.

Creating a job search plan is helpful to those who aren't sure how to apply their impending degrees to a career, or even how to look for that career. Ask yourself a few questions, such as:

What's my dream job?

Where do I need to live to work at my dream job?

Where do I want to be in five years?

What are my transferable skills?

What's the projected future of the industry I've chosen?

By finding out the answers to these questions, you can figure out exactly what you want to do and focus your job search around that goal.

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Rule #2: Find out where your industry is present. Say you were interested in working in the engineering field. You spent months scouring for jobs, only to later discover that you weren't looking in the right geographical areas. In other words, your chosen location isn't where your industry is the most active. So, you've wasted part of your job search on an area that's not going to benefit you. Conversely, if you're only looking for jobs through certain online platforms (particularly those that have zero industry presence), you aren't doing your job search justice.

It's important to figure out where your industry is present, online and off. Do some research on sites like the Bureau of Labor Statistics to see where your industry is the most active location-wise. You can also find out if your niche is active on certain blogs, industry websites, or platforms by doing simple Google searches. Whatever you decide to do, remember that finding out where your industry is most active is the key to doing the right research, as well as finding out where the jobs are.

Rule #3: Look for jobs properly. Once you've figured out what you want to do and how to get it, it's important to actually look for those opportunities appropriately. Believe it or not, even if you use popular job search methods like job boards or social networking, you could be doing it wrong.

For example, when using a job board, do you often search for opportunities by title? Though you may have thought it was an effective method, it's really not. The reason is because many employers place jobs by occupational category in order to reach the most candidates since a lot of skills cross over. So, while you're searching for jobs by titles, you could be missing out on tons of jobs that are a better fit for you, just not with the title you imagined.

Do yourself a favor and put yourself in the employers' shoes while job searching. Think about their needs instead of yours, and how those needs translate when promoting jobs. That way, you'll be in a much better position when you begin job searching and will be able to conduct it properly.

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Mary Marino is the founder of EmploymentPipeline.com, a job search resource that inspires job seekers to become their own recruiter. EmploymentPipeline.com has launched its "Occupation Pipeline" widget, a unique tool which enables users to perform broader career searches by sourcing occupations and employers, rather than job titles. Connect with Mary and EmploymentPipeline.com on Twitter and Facebook.